The Stranger
by Yasui Kikei
Summary: Sora and Riku find a strange girl within a cove during a picnic, and she begins unraveling strange mysteries much to their chagrin. M just in case.


"Come on guys!" Kairi waved her hand towards herself, signaling her two best friends to pick up the pace. The shore of the beach was calling to her, and it killed her to have to wait up for Sora and Riku. Tapping her foot impatiently, she waited for them to reach her before she continued her stride towards the crystal-clear waters. "It...It wouldn't take us so long if you'd actually _carry_ something," Riku muttered under his breath.

"You say something?"

"No!"

Sora was carrying all the blankets and the umbrella was tucked under his arm, and Riku was carrying the three food-baskets they had packed. For as skinny as Sora was, he sure ate like a pig. "Kairi, how much farther?" Sora complained, hitching the umbrella up to keep it from slipping. "We're here, Sora. See, it wasn't that far." Kairi smiled softly and plopped down into the sand, letting the sun soak into her skin.

"I don't even think I remember where I live now," he grumbled back to her, but simply sat down next to her and immediately opened one of the food baskets. For what seemed like the longest time, they just sat and ate sandwiches and watched the waves wash up just beyond their feet. Soon, Kairi's eyelids began to get heavy and she nodded off to sleep, and Sora just stared at her.

"You look at her like she's the most important thing in the world." This wasn't a snide remark, or even a tease; it was just put out there as a casual statement. Riku continued to stare out at the waves and didn't even look at Sora's reaction, which was a flustered face and dinner plate eyes. "I, uhm...I..." Sora tripped over his own words and thought it smarter to just shut up, so he did.

"You two are lucky. You have each other. Back when we all lived on Destiny Islands, I used to think I'd find somebody like her, y'know?" Riku sighed and laid down on the sand, folding his hands behind his head. Sora thought he saw Riku's lips tremble, but decided it was just his imagination. "Riku, it's not like you're not going to find anyone. Besides, Kairi might not even like me. It's just...I don't really know if I _love_ her yet. But I do know that I like being with her and seeing her happy."

This situation was so unusual, because usually Riku and Sora didn't talk about things like this. It was a good thing Kairi was asleep, because she would have immediately changed the subject from herself. But Riku thought, maybe, she liked all the attention she got from Sora. Shrugging off the thought, he sat erect and looked over at Sora with the mischievous grin that only meant trouble.

"No! I know what you're thinking, and _no_!" Sora shook his head quickly which made his spiky hair swish back and forth, obviously extremely against the idea that Riku hadn't even announced. "Oh, come on Sora! This is the only time we can! Kairi would never be up for it," Riku pleaded. He put on a faux puppy face and looked at Sora with big eyes and made a low whimpering noise.

"Gah…I know I'm going to regret this later." Sora frowned and hopped up from the sandy beach and held out his hand, pulling Riku up with unneeded aggression. "And just so you know, if we run into angry natives or something, I'll tell them to scalp you first."

Riku laughed loudly, but then glanced back nervously to see if it had awoken the redhead. Glad that it didn't, he began to walk the opposite direction of their picnic spot. The sun was beginning to come down from its spot overhead, so Sora and Riku both knew it was past noon. "What time should we head back?" Sora asked worryingly, knowing that if Kairi discovered they'd left during her nap that she'd have their heads for it.

"Eh, we should be back at the picnic around sundown. Kairi is a pretty deep sleeper, so there isn't much chance that she'll wake up before then." He replied lightly, yawning as if he was bored. "Why do you want to explore the island, anyway? It's not like there's anything here but sand, pointy rocks, and algae," Sora complained. _Why do you want to complain all the time?_ Riku asked to himself, annoyed.

"I don't know. I was wanting to find something like _The Secret Place_ on Destiny Island." As if on cue, Riku immediately stopped in his tracks. Up ahead…there was what looked like a cove of some sort. "What is it, Riku?" Sora asked in a confused tone, his brows furrowing together. "There's a cove up ahead," he began, his voice slowed, "race you!"

Before Sora could say anything, Riku had taken off in a fast jog, and Sora had to sprint to catch up with him. As they ran in silence, the cove got bigger and bigger until they were at the mouth of it. They could hear water dripping inside and it echoing against the walls, and a thrill of adrenaline rushed through the both of them.


End file.
